In January I posted about a change in the leaderboard, where maps were then rated by hits/day average, not total hits. Overall, this was a much more fluid way to rate maps as it allows all users to participate on equal ground.

The biggest downside to this approach, though, is that sites are subject to volume fluctuations over time. For example, a site might suddenly gain a great deal of new visitors, but the volume might be “hidden” by months of old data factored in. The solution: Worldmaps now only considers the last 30 days of traffic when calculating hits per day average. This allows the traffic sways to be much more impactful over the short term.

As a side benefit, the data is now aggregated differently and allows for deeper reporting on a daily basis – this is reflected in the new chart on the reporting page, like so:

I'm not sure I like this. You lose the feeling of "building up" your traffic. Now, you just need one good spurt and you're good for the next 30 days. On the other hand, it does make sure that someone who gets one good spurt is gone after their 30 days is up.

Good point -- on the other hand, though, suppose you build up traffic over the year. You'd never be able to move your rank much, because all the early traffic is holding you down in the average. It could be that 30 days is too short -- maybe moving it to 45 or 60 days is better?